And in this
distracting clash of opposing political forces, amid this first crash
and downfall of the ancient order of things, there passed, almost
unnoticed, save by the weeping Queen and harassed King, who hung over
his pillow, the last sigh, the last childish words of the Dauphin. The
tired little royal head, which had been greeted eight years before with
such acclamations of enthusiastic delight, dropped wearily and all
unnoticed for the last time, happily ignorant of the martyr's crown it
had escaped. Calvert had the news from Madame de Montmorin when he went
to pay his respects to her on the evening of the 3d of June, and in
imagination he saw, over and over again, the lovely face of the Queen
distorted with unavailing grief.
All these public occurrences which filled the hurrying days were
reported in Mr. Jefferson's long letters to General Washington, to the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jay, to Mr. Madison, Mr. Carmichael,
and other friends in America, whom he knew to be deeply interested in
the trend of French affairs. Indeed, he knew fully whereof he wrote,
for, although in that summer of '89 the position of the United States in
relation to Europe was anything but enviable, though we were deeply in
debt and our credit almost gone, though England and Spain turned us the
cold shoulder, though our enemies were diligently circulating damaging
stories of the disunion, the bankruptcy, the agitation in American
affairs, yet so friendly was the French government to us, so deep the
personal respect and admiration for Mr.
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